“The internet needs you,” I said to Howard Stern when I called into the show this morning as he was ranting about his contract negotiations with Sirius XM and the possibility that he could take his show and more to the net.

Do it, Howard.

“You made satellite radio,” I told him. “You will make the internet.” For Stern is the one media entity who can absolutely, positively get people to pay online — even me, the alleged opponent of all things paid. Today I pay $12 a month for Stern — more, actually, with my internet account and my wife’s and son’s cars. Stern is talking about charging $5 a month and for that we’d get his radio show plus his TV shows plus much more, even music — and no advertising (“why should I hire a sales force?” he asked).

Sold.

Why the hell would I pay for Howard Stern and not pay for news? Because Howard is unique. News isn’t. There’s no end of potential competition for any news provider and its unique value expires in seconds. Not so Howard. Arianna Huffington was wrong when she says that people will pay for business news and porn. There’s no need to pay for porn because there’s no scarcity of people who will strip and shtupp in front of a webcam. But there’s only one Howard.

I wrote about Howard’s potential internet empire here. Fellow Howard fan Doc Searls wrote about the potential here. Way back in 2005, I wrote an open letter to Sirius’ Mel Karmazin urging him to embrace the internet and see satellite as just as transitional delivery mechanism for his valuable content (ignore the ****ing spam links on the post). He didn’t listen. Apparently, he’s not listening to Howard, either.

Content I will pay for: farts
Regulating sex and speech
The birth of TBD?
Fine. Even though I’m a Sirius shareholder and even though his departure would lead to a plummet in the stock price (from 2¢ to 1¢), I want him to leave because he will turn the internet into a credible, sustainable, mass entertainment medium. The delivery’s tricky but that will be fixed quickly as we carry connected devices all the time, everywhere: our phones, computers, TVs, cars, tablets, and devices we can’t imagine will all be connected (if the phone companies don’t **** it up). The critical last six inches for Stern are not his penis but the means by which his show gets from my phone to my car speakers. But it’ll be cheaper to install a bluetooth transmitter than a Sirius radio. If we millions of Stern fans went to the trouble of subscribing to and installing Sirius, we’ll do it with something even easier that gives us the entire internet all the time.

For Stern, the economics have to be extremely tempting. He should not work for a company. (Howard: Don’t get sucked into signing on with another employer!) He should be the company. He can charge us less than half what we pay now. He can build the infrastructure for next to nothing (as he said today, he can build a studio — big deal). All he needs is a billing mechanism (Paypal?) and a bandwidth provider (Akamai?). He won’t need to market; he already is viral. And he gets to keep the profits. Sweet.

For us, we get to listen to Stern whenever and wherever we want. (Howard: Please let us listen to repeats on our own schedule, on demand!) We pay less and don’t suffer through ads for itchy-ball cures.

For the internet, we get to prove to unique entertainers everywhere that they can cut out the middlemen — networks, studios, all that — and create valuable relationships directly with their fans, getting much richer in the process. And that, in turn, forces entertainers, studios, networks, and cable companies to sell us entertainment a la carte, so I can stop paying for the damned 95% of my channels I never watch.

What’s not to love?

Do it, Howard. Leave old technology. Build the next medium, our medium. To hell with all the old media companies that have screwed you and us all these years. This is real freedom.

Shock jock Howard Stern brought more than just his oversized personality to satellite radio when he joined Sirius — he also carted along an estimated 1.2 million new subscribers.

Now, five years later, Stern’s $500 million contract with Sirius XM Radio Inc. is nearly up, giving rise to concerns about how well the company would fare without one of its biggest stars. At the moment, its stock is trading around $1 a share and is down 5 percent in the last month, underperforming the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index.

“There’s a negotiation going on and everyone’s assuming the worst,” said Maxim Group analyst John Tinker, who says uncertainty about Stern has weighed on Sirius XM’s stock.

Still, others point out that over a six-month stretch, the shares are up 11 percent and say worries are overblown that a boatload of Sirius XM’s 19.6 million subscribers would be lost should Stern depart after his contract expires in December.

With or without Stern, they say Sirius XM’s concentration on car radios and partnerships with auto manufacturers will keep its subscriber base growing for years. Last quarter alone it added 583,000 subscribers.

“The company’s in a pretty good position and their operations would be fine and continue even if they lost subscribers because of Stern,” said BGB Securities analyst Murray Arenson.

Another analyst, James Goss from Barrington Research, says that the listeners who followed Stern to Sirius XM may not be ready to leave with him.

“People who took the product then might have found other things they liked about satellite radio, and at this stage, they wouldn’t necessarily leave,” Goss said.

Satellite radio does not have a formal ratings system in place, since it does not rely on advertisements for its profit, so audience numbers are not available for Stern’s show.

Sirius XM did not returns calls seeking comment for this story.

‘WE MIGHT BE DONE’

One possible scenario, analysts said, is Sirius XM and Stern could reach a new contract that called for fewer shows and less money. Under his current contract, Stern produces a show four days a week, as well as other content for the channels Howard 100 and 101.

On air, Stern often talks about wanting to sleep in, work less and spend more time with his second wife, a former model whom he married in 2008.

Besides Stern, Sirius XM has a number of high-profile contracts, including a $600 million deal with Major League Baseball, a $55 million contract with Oprah Winfrey and a $30 million deal with Martha Stewart.

Lately, however, the company has focused on cutting its programming costs. Aiding that effort has been the 2008 deal that merged Sirius with rival XM radio — an arrangement that put an end to bidding wars between the two for talent.

Sirius XM has also gained a key foothold in the auto market. The company said in last quarter’s conference call that about 60 percent of newly manufactured cars now come equipped with a satellite radio.

Even if car sales have been depressed, “six million plus cars a year are still rolling off the assembly line with satellite radios in them,” said Barton Crockett, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets. He added that the radios could be in 70 million cars by 2015.

Sirius XM has also shown it can get customers to commit to its service after starter promotions end. It has a 46 percent conversion rate, which Barrington Research’s Goss called “very impressive,” and was fueling the company’s momentum.

As for Stern, he has hinted that he may be willing to walk away from Sirius XM, even if traditional radio, which has seen serious revenue declines in the past few years, probably cannot afford to hire him.

On his Aug. 16 show, Stern said, “I do get a little charge out of thinking that in December we might be done. I get a little turned on by that,” according to an audio clip posted on a fan web site.

But such remarks about his uncertain future could be one of Stern’s tactics in his talks with Sirius XM. Stern joined Sirius in 2006 prior to the merger.

So Sirius Roadkill whats your best quess as to what Howard ultimately does?

Well Lloyd . . as a loyal Howard Stern fan who 1st started listening when he was on WNBC in New York , around 1982, I have come to a point where I no longer care what he does with his career . . . except to the extent that it effects the value of my investment. Here is my take:

1.) If Stern re-ups with Siri the SP will go DOWN shortly after the announcement, under heavy shorting pressure by professionals; easy pickins due to the unsophisticated yahoos who will rush-in on the news and also a hedge against issuance of unrestricted shares or options (as part of compensation package) that will cause further dilution. I will watch signals, read 8-k and then probably sell some over-core after the announcement, look to buyback after 7-8% dip;

2.) If Stern doesn't re-up, I will add to my position a few days after the announcement as I believe the SP will go UP. Mel has all the #'s. If Mel has the chops not to re-up him, it tells me that the internal evaluation is positive/accretive to bottom line.

Here's how I look at Stern's career on satrad:

Which one of the following punchlines is funnier:

1.) Hey Robin . . I think Artie just sh*t his pants

2.) Hey Robin . . I think Artie just made in his pants

IMO, Stern's brilliance was in his use of double-entendre . . satrad does nothing to illuminate that